Jithendra Palasagaram and Jesil Pujara took a big leap when they recently left their secure corporate jobs at GE Healthcare and formed a Waukesha startup called Part Analytics.
Part Analytics is a cloud-based SaaS solution for procurement analytics of electronic components. Procurement specialists could use it to identify suppliers, negotiate contracts and price materials for a large original equipment manufacturing corporation. The aim is to reduce costs and generate actionable insights for those Fortune 200-size firms, Palasagaram said.
“The cost savings is the main factor and the other one is the supply chain risk. We’d be able to help them identify supply chain risks and mitigate the issue before it happens,” he said.
The co-founders have now completed a $625,000 seed funding round for the company.
An electronic board that is part of an MRI scanner, for example, could have thousands of different components, all coming from different suppliers, Palasagaram said.
“These parts come from all over the globe,” he said. “Even if one small part that costs $1 doesn’t come in to the factory on time, we can’t assemble it and we cannot ship it out to our customers.”
Palasagaram and Pujara met when they teamed up on a New Venture Challenge while Jithendra was studying for his MBA at the University of Chicago. This was the business plan they came up with, and out of 80 teams, they were in the top 10. Part Analytics received a funding grant from the University of Chicago in 2017 and used it to build a prototype and get customer feedback.
Now, the pair is in discussions with a Fortune 200 OEM, Palasagaram said.
“We have these comfortable jobs and good paychecks coming in. That’s part of the challenge for people like us who have been in the industry and have an idea to leave our jobs and try something new,” Palasagaram said.
Part Analytics went through the gBETA program in Milwaukee in 2018, and got connected to its lead investor, Idea Fund of La Crosse, via gener8tor.
“(The funding round is) mainly for the full-scale product development to build a platform and also on sales and marketing to attract customers,” Palasagaram said.
They hope to hire two more employees this year as they work to bring on two major customers to pilot the platform.
